McIlroy, 33, who has been playing professionally since 2007, has owned four majors in 22 PGA Tour titles and eight on the DP World Tour (the new name of the European Tour) and accumulated 106 weeks as world number one (OWGR table).
The Championship Tour is not scored OWGR so this week the top 3 order from the top still includes Scheffler, Cameron Smith and McIlroy.
Former world number one Rory McIlroy won the Tour Championship by -21 points, thereby setting a back-to-back record at the tournament and being the first person to hold the FedEx Cup three times.
McIlroy entered the tournament with a -4 advantage, while world number one Scottie Scheffler was at -10 thanks to topping the FedEx Cup table.
After round 1, Scheffler was up to -15 and dropped five strokes from second place, while McIlroy reached -7.
This time, McIlroy crossed the court and finished with a triple bogey on the first hole. After the round, he said:
“I was six strokes behind when I got into the first hole, to the third hole 10 strokes away.
It shows that no one anticipated anything, whether they were leading or a few strokes behind.”
Over the next two rounds, Scheffler earned eight more points to continue his monopoly at -23.
McIlroy persevered in the chase, standing just behind at -17.
This set the stage for the Northern Irish golfer to break the record of five strokes back to win the Tour Championship, set by Camilo Villegas in 2008.
On the final lap, McIlroy and Scheffler both started the final round, both bogeying on the first hole.
Scheffler “lost fire” in the first nine holes, allowing McIlroy to close the gap.
With his fifth birdie on the 12th hole, McIlroy went up to T1 with Scheffler, at -21.
On the 14th hole, McIlroy made bogey, while his opponent held the par.
On the 15th hole, the former world number one returned to T1 with his American counterpart when birdie from a stroke of about 9.6 meters.
The other three holes, McIlroy all held the par, setting the win mark of -21, and Scheffler added bogey on the 16th hole to finish at -20.
